10/17/2013
Today is the first day that the new Windows 8.1 release became available to the public in the Windows Store. I checked my Twitter feed for others I consider experts in Windows 8 matters and as expected saw that a few of them were updating their systems.
I decided I would go ahead and update my Surface RT. When I went to the Windows Store I found 5 updates that needed to be completed first. It is always a good idea to have your system completely up-to-date before you upgrade a device to the next release. I clicked on “Install” button and in less than a minute all 5 updates completed and my system was 100% up-to-date.
A couple of weeks ago I did the latest firmware updates so I felt confident my Surface RT was ready for the new and improved version of Windows 8.1
But…. just in case, I backed up all the files on my Surface RT to a USB drive as this is just good computing practice, especially when a major update is involved. Yes, the Surface RT has a USB port!
Here we go!
8:10am
I went to the Microsoft Store and sure enough the Windows 8.1 update was displayed prominently on the first page of the Store and I selected it to install the free 8.1 update. I made sure the electrical adapter was plugged-in to the Surface RT and began the update at 8:10am CST and the update process started. This process took about 50 minutes for the download to complete and for the system to gather all the necessary data from the system to install the update.
9:00am
At 9:00am sharp the Surface RT was ready for a “Restart”.
I received the message that the system may need to restart multiple times and to make sure I saved all my work before restarting. The RT rebooted and began the “Setting up” process and this took about 30 minutes.
9:27am
The Surface RT system completed the setting up process and rebooted again.
9:28am
Upon reboot received the message “Getting devices ready” and this only took one minute followed by a “Getting ready” message for about another minute.
9:29am
Received “Applying PC settings” message. This took approximately 8 minutes to complete.
9:37am
The Surface RT rebooted again.
9:38am
Received “Setting up a few more things” message. This seemed to sit on 89% for quite some time before completing.
9:52am
“Getting ready” message.
9:53am
Received “License Terms” message and clicked on “I Accept”
9:54am
Settings option, I chose “Use Express Settings”
9:54am
“Next you will setup your account”
9:55am
“Sign in to your Microsoft Account” It remembered my account name I use on the RT so I just typed in my password.
9:56am
“Help us protect your account info” message. I used my mobile phone to receive text code to verify my account settings.
9:57am
Typed in the code on the RT that was sent to my mobile phone then, Next.
9:58am
Received info about SkyDrive storage saying my camera roll and PC Settings will be automatically backed up to the cloud, Next.
9:58am
Another reboot.
9:59am
Received the “Hi” introductory screen and it began installing my apps.
“You can get new apps from the Store”
“Installing apps…”
10:01am
“Taking care of a few things”
“Installing apps…”
“Don’t turn off your PC”
10:02am
“Getting your apps ready”
“Don’t turn off your PC”
10:03am
“Almost ready”
“Let’s Start”
10:04am
I see my Start Screen for the first time!
Finished!
A little under two hours from start to finish, much better than the 22 hour update the last time I updated an iPad to iOS7. I gave up on the iOS7 update and let it finish the download overnight. The actual update after iOS7 was downloaded was less than an hour. To be fair our network was maxed out at capacity the first day iOS7 was released but I am sure Microsoft servers are also being hammered by traffic today.
10:10am
Looks like all my apps are here and in a similar order to the way I had them organized in Windows 8.0. First thing I did was select the Desktop tile by pressing and holding my finger on it, then selected “Resize” and made it the largest tile size on my Start Screen.
Next, I opened up OneNote to verify my notes were there from SkyDrive, they were.
I next opened up the Bing apps of News, Weather, Finance, Travel, and the new Food & Drink and new Health & Fitness app that were placed to the far right on my Start Screen since they are new apps. I moved the new apps to my “Bing apps” section to keep similar apps together. Moving the apps across the Start Screen to the new location was much faster than rearranging apps in 8.0
Since I now had 7 apps open I swiped in with my left thumb to swipe through all the open apps in a repeating motion to get a feel for the speed of 8.1, it seem a little faster and smoother than 8.0
10:20am
I would like to make a comment to readers that have made it this far, first thank you for taking the time to read this. As tablets are increasingly used in the educational space we need to have tools that take away some of the pain of setting up and maintaining mobile devices and tablets. Microsoft has long been a leader with providing IT Departments with tools for imaging and deployment of computing devices in mass. We desperately need similar management tools in the tablet space. We need imaging tools that will allow us to update and/or re-image a tablet measured in minutes, not hours.
Anyone can update one system, but even at one or two hours for completing the update process is stretching the patience at the individual level. At the school level with, tens, hundreds, and even thousands of devices this becomes a big problem. Microsoft and Apple need to seriously beef up their deployment options.
Setting up an iPad is just as painful, maybe more so as everything is handled in a “consumer” way that is fine for individuals but if you are considering a 1:1 program for students having an update take two hours per device is unacceptable. My experience with the iOS7 update was even more painful as the process took 22 hours to complete as the universities wireless network was overwhelmed with traffic that slowed the iOS7 download to a crawl.
Multiuser Accounts
10:30am
After playing around with the Start Screen and some of the new 8.1 features for about half an hour my next test was to see if the 8.1 update kept my multiuser accounts that I routinely use on the RT, it did. The first time I signed out I had a different Lock Screen picture that was colorful concentric circle design. I think I got this because I was using the default choice from Windows 8.0
10:31am
I signed into the Surface RT with a different user account and got the “Hi” message and then the RT went through some basic setup. I received the SkyDrive message saying that the system would use SkyDrive to backup my PC Settings and Camera Roll to the cloud, so I pressed Next. In less than two minutes my other multiuser account was ready to use on the Surface RT.
My Start Screen was there customized like I had it in Windows 8.0. Since I had used a Lock Screen picture from SkyDrive on this second account it remembered my Lock Screen choice and used it.
I think I am really going to like these roaming settings from device to device. I will need to further explore the app roaming as I have read that you can sync apps across multiple devices as well.
Multiuser accounts are a great option for educational use. Getting away from the one account per one device per person scenario as some tablet makers insist is much more practical in an educational setting. Multiuser accounts are also great in a family setting where you want to share a tablet with a family member but not have them see your account information or messing with your Start Screen.
To get acclimated to some of the the new features available in 8.1 here is a link from Paul Thurrott's WinSuperSite:
http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-81-tips So, that’s it. I now have Windows 8.1 installed to investigate further and explore the educational possibilities this new release offers.
Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
